365 days of meditation

[Spry]

Day 21

Missed the morning meditation but got one in in the evening. Only about 10 minutes.

Even right now it's getting late and I should go to sleep so I can get a long meditation in in the morning... just don't want to

On the bright side, that's 21 days in a row

[Spry]

Day 22

10 minutes this morning and some meditation while I was driving.

Still wanna get back to longer ones in the mornings.

[Spry]

Day 23

An hour this morning. Felt like I was dealing with a little dullness once I got focused. Bodyscanning helped at that point -- want to keep doing that.

Also really want to keep emphasizing getting to bed at 12 or so. Would really help with getting morning meditations in.

[Spry]

Day 24

Half an hour this morning. Felt a little tired and unfocused so I stopped early.

[Spry]

Day 25

Almost an hour and a half today. Definitely the best/deepest meditation I've had this month.

After getting to the point where my mind stops jumping around after 20 or 30 minutes, I did a long body scan to deepen my concentration and increase the detail of my perceptions. The result was much more intense and vivid concentration and much more stillness in my mind. 

At some point I had a pretty intense body jolt and the mini-insight that appeared immediately after was simply: "I just need to go deeper rather than looking for clues on the surface". 

While it's nice to learn from watch my mind when I'm semi-concentrated, there's I think I've already picked most of the low-hanging fruit. I need to go deeper and see what else there is to learn there.

There's a tendency (of mine, and that I see in other people all the time) to try to recognize the truths of meditation from states of concentration that aren't profound enough to actually recognize them. For instance, I can see "impermanence" or "no self" in really superficial ways, but it's clearly not the profound insight that people talk about.

Going forward, I'm going to use the body scan and other concentration practices to bring me deeper (like today) rather than just hanging out or doing psuedo-insight practices when my mind first settles down.

[Spry]

Day 26

About an hour today but I got just about as deep as yesterday. 

Just for reference when I check back in a month or two, today it took about 26 minutes for my mind to settle to the point where I didn't feel like I needed to count my breaths. Today it happened sort of all at once -- I got lost in thought, and when I came back I was there. 

I did the body scan for the next half hour or so, then focused on the very subtle sensations of the breath at the nose for the last 5 minutes. 

It's hard to explain why, but this feels "right" right now. Kind of like it's just what I'm supposed to be doing to progress.

I'm still a bit unclear about exactly what stages I'm in, what level of distraction (if any) is present and the difference between subtle distractions and awareness, but I think the solution is just to keep practicing and keep going deeper until those things become more clear. I'd like to keep learning as much as I can from my experience, but I don't want to try to gain insights from experiences that aren't actually there yet.

[Spry]

Day 27

About 20 minutes today. Felt a little less motivated.

Friday and Saturday are a little tougher for me because I have appointments in the morning. I still really want to work on my sleep schedule, but it's one of those things that's hard to change because I *like* staying up late and sleeping in. I definitely feel more energetic when I sleep at better hours + it's easier to get morning meditations in every day, but it's hard to change something you have a habit of doing and enjoy.

Happy with how things are going though. 27 days in a row is pretty good!

[Spry]

Day 28

10 minutes this evening. 

[Spry]

Day 29

50 minutes this morning. Took a really long time for my mind to settle and I felt a bit unfocused. Such is meditation though; everything ebbs and flows.

[Spry]

Day 30

10 minutes.

Haven't felt super inspired the last few days. It's interesting that this often happens after I have one or two really great meditations.

On the bright side, 30 days straight!! Giving myself a gold star.

Edited January 29, 2019 by Spry

[Spry]

Day 31 

35 minutes this morning.

[Spry]

Day 32

10 minutes this morning. Haven't felt as motivated lately as I mentioned. 

Hopefully I can just use this time to further ingrain the habit and make more progress when motivation returns.

[Spry]

Day 33

About 20 minutes early this morning. I did several of the exercises from the book Shift Into Freedom and they were pretty good.

[Spry]

Day 34

About 50 minutes. 

 

[Spry]

Day 35

About 15 minutes this morning.

[Spry]

Day 36

10 minutes in the evening.

Day 37

An hour this morning.

The meditation today felt really nice, but I've been dealing with a bit of doubt the past week or two. Perhaps my expectations are too high, but at times it feels like I'm filling a leaky bucket. 

[Spry]

Day 38

15 minutes. Kinda uninspired.

[Spry]

Day 39 

About 10 minutes. 

[Spry]

Day 40

About 10 minutes.

 

[Spry]

Day 41

10 minutes.

I think what I've been encountering the past week or two is simply that, even though I've tasted the fruits of meditation, it's really difficult to convince my subconscious mind that it's worth doing. Honestly, I've probably meditated about 1000 hours over the past 6 or 7 years, and really don't have much to show for it other than reduced reactivity + more equanimity in difficult situations. This is nice, but it's like a 20% quality of life improvement. From temporarily reaching clearer, stiller states, it's obvious that it's possible to improve one's quality of life by 500% or 1000%, but it's difficult to sit down and meditate with energy and motivation day after day when progress seems so slow and there's a little bit of a catch-22 with doubt.